Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts like this.

Kenma ends up working in the IT department of the library during his time at the university.

He does it because the job’s quiet and while busy, still low effort. The people are nice. It's decent and doesn’t require an extra commute. It keeps his head occupied and is a good backup for when his other endeavors aren't as fruitful as they could be — maybe he should focus on one to make it more fruitful but he thinks a wide repertoire suits him better. And while he's got limited time and energy to waste, every single one of his job adventures hits a different spot in his brain and keeps him interested in its own way. It's like looking at his gaming library to get rid of some to make room for new ones and every game has its charms to draw him in. Decisions are difficult and Kenma enjoys all of them to some extent, so he keeps them.

Anyway, as things tend to happen, one day Kenma's normal work day turns into a frazzled hell because nothing is working and nobody seems to consider that staying clear-headed would do more good than blaming others — maybe because both the head of the department and his deputy are out today.

On that day Kenma makes himself invaluable because not only does he find the issue within five minutes flat he also can help fix it. He doesn't know what exactly he does but he's good at finding key information buried in heaps of useless information — years of being very particular and energy-efficient about doing homework having schooled him on it — and thus he ends up making himself interesting enough in a single day that at the end of his university life, he has a job offer waiting for him like it's nothing.

It was something though. Endurance mostly.

Now some years later, he's still here — part-time — because he actually enjoys the work and while he isn't fond of leaving the small house he's renting — investing time and energy into streaming, running Bouncing Ball, and doing stock trading is fun and returns a decent profit nowadays — he's also become sort of fond of his colleagues at the library. Not all of them but he's been adopted by a few that are tolerable and which he'd place on some sort of friend level. And seeing people is nice from time to time.

And then in comes Kuroo Tetsurou and ruins any fun Kenma's having.

Because he is everything that doesn't belong in a library — Kenma's version of it anyway.

Kuroo is boisterous and loud and charming all the while being attentive and smart and so damn infuriating. His smile is so wide it hurts Kenma just to look at it, and his dress pants are always neatly pressed and well fitted, his shirt tucked in and on days that he's really feeling himself he wears a tie and a vest. A tie, okay. But a vest? They're working in a library, good god. He makes the rest of them look like bums and the nerds they admittedly are. And worse, he makes himself seem like he runs this place instead of just being one of the librarians staffing the reference desk and being involved in both the social media team and training fresh-faced students on how to use the services the library offers.

The cherry on top is that he gets along with everyone, charming their female colleagues with a smile and a seemingly good character — the judge is still out on that — and catching the interest of their male ones by being a mixture of sports bro and nerd — what is it with so many people in this library being into volleyball, anyway? By now they could probably find enough people interested to play with two full teams.

Even the library patrons seem to appreciate Kuroo. Not even the weird ones seem to want to act weird when he's around — though that might be his build and height at play, scaring them into place by sheer presence. At least that’s what Kenma heard. He doesn’t leave his office on the ground floor much. Certainly not to spy on coworkers.

Either way, it's weird. Kuroo’s weird.

Kenma hates him with a passion.

“You only dislike him because he's upsetting your perfect little quiet place,” Akaashi comments when Kenma exhales heavily through his nose as he watches Kuroo enter the IT department like he owns this place as well. He's just picking up a new headset, who gave him the right to do it with such grandeur? Stupid extroverts and their extroverted actions.

“Shut up,” Kenma mumbles and forces his eyes back to the screen in front of him, where he's setting up a new user account for their library management system. Another month, another newcomer for circulation. It's admirable that Akaashi’s still working there and that they still manage to find people willing to work there when their patrons seemingly become worse and worse each year. Not the university students so much but rather the university staff and other citizens allowed to use the materials. Also, Daishou being part of that team doesn't help. He's worse than Kuroo by far because he isn't even trying to hide how sly he is.

Akaashi hums, still leaning with his back to Kenma against his desk and mostly blocking him from the view of everyone else. It's a small gift that Akaashi offers whenever he visits because Kenma hates this desk as well, hates that he was moved to the spot facing the door and where he is right in the line of sight of anyone entering if he doesn't hunch over. “It's because you spend the least time here. None of our full-time employees wanted it so you got the short straw,” his boss had said, all diplomacy and smiles while Kenma had considered what the lesser evil would be, quitting right there on the spot or moving his stuff to a new desk.

In the end, the new desk won if only because Kenma didn't want to leave Akaashi to deal with the idiocracy of this whole library by himself. Not yet at least. He needs to find a good replacement for himself first. And that’s a tall order.

“Incoming at twelve o’clock.”

Kenma flinches, head ducking even lower at Akaashi’s words.

“Akaashi-san!” Kuroo's voice is friendly and loud with a smile. “Inuoka-san was looking for you earlier. Did he find you?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kenma can see Akaashi shake his head. “I had a meeting and then some. I'll go find him when I'm done here, thank you.”

“No problem.” There's silence for a second and then — because of course he doesn't just leave — there are fingers tapping the top of Kenma's computer screen. He makes a face at the fact that Kuroo so blatantly touches a screen that is not meant to be touched. A screen that isn't his to keep clean. Slowly and with careful consideration for how he could murder him, Kenma lifts his eyes towards him.

Kuroo's smiling at him but it's the soft “let me introduce myself”-one, he'd worn during the all-hands meeting where he was first introduced to the whole staff last month. “I don't think we've met yet?”

“We haven't,” Kenma agrees and then pointedly looks back at what he was working on. A second of awkward silence before Akaashi just as pointedly clears his throat and Kenma tacks on, “Kozume Kenma.”

“Ah, you're the IT guy. I've heard about you.”

Captain obvious at work, Kenma thinks but refrains from saying. Because what else would he be, when they are at the desk he occupies in the office of the IT department?

“Kuroo Tetsurou. Nice to meet you.”

Kenma hums in some form of agreement because he knows Akaashi would let him feel his wrath otherwise. He's all about keeping relationships between the teams and departments positive and Kenma hates him for it. If Kuroo is upsetting the quiet of Kenma's personal little heaven here right now, then Akaashi did so first by forcing him to leave his office for more than just IT stuff and going home.

Kenma types another word, hits enter, then the save button. “Done,” he mumbles.

“Great,” Akaashi says. “So new account for Shibayama-san, closed days entered for the next year, and adjustment to the user import. Anything else?”

“I set your email address to be pinged as well if the new script for the user registration fails. Saves me the trouble of having to message you.”

“Should it fail again?”

Kenma rolls his eyes. “Not if you ask me, we triple-checked this. But your stupid patrons always manage to find any weakness anything in this library has. So ask them how they did it, if they somehow manage to break this again.”

Kuroo laughs, a low, quiet one that makes Kenma look up and remember that oh right, Kuroo is still standing right there, listening intently and absorbing information like a sponge. Ugh. His eyes are sparkling when they meet Kenma's. “They do tend to do that, don't they? I've noticed that as well.”

It's a short second of shared agreement, that Kenma ends when he lowers his eyes back to his computer, hair falling back into his face. “You can leave now.”

“Right,” Akaashi says but doesn't move, instead just like Kuroo, touches the top of his screen. What is it with everybody today and touching things that shouldn't be touched?

“Stop that,” Kenma hisses and slaps at Akaashi's hand. Reflex. Embarrassing reflex because Kuroo laughs once more and it makes Kenma grit his teeth.

“You're joining me for lunch before you're going home, right?” Akaashi asks as he finally straightens up again and turns fully towards Kenma.

“You made it a mandatory, daily meeting in my calendar so I'm not allowed to say no, now, am I?” He could. If he really wanted to he could say no. But even if Kenma would like to say he's as introverted as they come, he doesn't mind being around and listening to other people's conversations.

“Great, then add Kuroo-san to our lunch calendar.” Akaashi pauses and Kenma looks up to see Akaashi smile at a slightly perplexed-looking Kuroo. “I put value in cross-team relationships. Unlike Kozume, you're welcome to say no though if you have other responsibilities keeping you busy. This is just a standing offer if you'd prefer a more relaxed atmosphere for lunch.”

“Oh,” Kuroo seems to hesitate a second before he says, “That's kind of you. I appreciate it.”

And when Kenma looks up this time, Kuroo actually looks a bit hesitant, as if being invited is new for him. As if all that boisterous charisma and charm is just a front he uses to distract and - Oh god, is he masking as an extrovert? Is all of his persona just big talk because he doesn't want anyone to look too close and figure out his weak spots? That would explain so fucking much. But it also means -

“We meet at the staff entrance,” Kenma hears himself say before he can stop his mouth from running ahead and he can see in the twitch of Akaashi's mouth that he's been played. Akaashi knew. He knew and he used this moment to capture Kenma's interest. Fuck him. Kenma huddles back down and glares at his computer as he adds Kuroo's user to their shared calendar anyway. “Now leave, the both of you. I have stuff to do and unlike you, I don't have the whole day to finish it up.”

“See you later,” Akaashi says and waves Kuroo along. “Did Inuoka-san say what he wanted?”

He can hear Kuroo say, “He might have but he was all over the place, so I-,” and then the door shuts behind them.

The piece and quiet settle back over Kenma, underlined by the incessant typing from a few desks over and the barely audible notes of music coming through his coworker's headphones. They are the only ones on this side of the office right now and Kenma allows himself to sigh and sink down in his chair for just a second.

Fucking Akaashi and his obsession with having everybody make friends here.

It's just a job.

Kenma blows a strand of his hair out of his face and gets back to work.

————

Kuroo shows up to lunch that day. And the next day, and the day after, and after a few weeks of this, Kenma really wants to ask if he took ‘cross team relationships’ a little too literally. Because if he's here, he's definitely not building proper relationships within his own team. Which is not ideal by any means. Not that Kenma cares but he's just saying. Thinking. Whatever.

Though Kenma has to (begrudgingly) admit (to himself only) that Kuroo slots nicely into their group. He gets on with Akaashi like a house on fire, their shared interest being — no surprise — volleyball and the fact that Kuroo seems to know Bokuto, one of Akaashi's closest friends from their time in their high school volleyball clubs. Good, that means Kenma won't be subjected to any more requests to join Akaashi for early morning games on the weekend. He can take Kuroo with him and Kenma can stay home and sleep in like any normal person should on their days off.

Tora — the insane person they adopted from periodicals because you have to be to deal with those — and Kuroo are a bit more difficult but then again Tora’s an actual extrovert and the only outlier in their group. Though he's good at getting a rise out of everyone, Kenma especially, and a mindless discussion about “always giving it your all even if nobody values it” later, Tora's won Kuroo over as well because they're both on the same page. Akaashi stays neutral, Fukunaga from acquisitions stays quiet and Kenma fights his fight against them alone and is defeated that day by the final boss that is Kuroo's quick wit and wide smirk. Kenma promises himself that he'll get revenge when he watches Tora and Kuroo high-five.

The worst is that Kuroo even gets along with Fukunaga who rarely joins them but if he does deflects even more conversations than Kenma already does. Though he sometimes does it with a well-placed joke which might be why Kuroo doesn't take it too hard.

But he just accepts that neither Fukunaga nor Kenma are big talkers and talks to them without expecting much more than a change in expression or loh and behold just leaves them be. Kenma especially. His leave-me-alone vibe — supported by a peculiar focus on eating lunch and then whatever game his smartphone has to offer that day — must have had some effect.

At least until the middle of November when Kuroo is suddenly standing in front of Kenma's desk and doing that annoying thing of tapping the top of his screen for attention — “Stop reacting to it and he'll stop doing it,” Akaashi had said but that's easier said than done. Kenma saves the progress on his code and looks up.

“Are we not meeting for lunch today?” Kuroo looks uncertain and like it took him a great deal of encouragement from himself to even come here and ask. “The meeting wasn't canceled but none of you showed, so I was just…”

“Oh.” Kenma’s eyes flicker to the clock. It's nearly ten past twelve. Did Kuroo wait this long for them before coming to ask? “Akaashi and Tora are both in a meeting. Fukunaga is out sick.”

And Kenma didn't even think beyond that because he's just an add-on anyway and no one expects him to be there and usually Akaashi still cancels the calendar entries. Especially when there are only two people left and Kenma is one of them. Because if there's anything worse than being forced to go to lunch, it's being forced to sit through awkward small talk because he can't be bothered to keep up a conversation and the other can't sit in silence. Except this time Akaashi apparently thought he should at least give it a try with Kuroo once because the proof of it is standing right in front of Kenma, looking at him like his pet fish died. God damn it.

He sees a detached smile spreading on Kuroo's face — one that clearly shows he's just being polite and that doesn't reach his eyes — and Kenma forces out, “Give me a sec, and I'll join you, sorry.”

Akaashi would be so fucking proud of him, he thinks as he makes sure that he really saved his progress and jots down a thought or two to continue on, then saves again for good measure.

“You don't have to,” Kuroo says. “I know you're mostly just humoring Akaashi-san.”

“I said yes already, didn't I?” Kenma rolls his eyes as he flicks through his drawer for some of the backup food he keeps. Mostly just energy bars and snacks but they'll do today. Better than nothing or spending money on dining hall food that he’ll only eat half of anyway. Because he knew coming in this morning that he wouldn't leave his desk for lunch today, so bringing food from home was deemed unnecessary. How blatantly wrong he was. “Akaashi just hounds me because he knows I'll forget to eat otherwise.”

Kuroo makes a noise. “That seems like a you thing.”

‘A you thing’. Kenma throws the floor the most angry look he can manage, as he gets up and just starts the track to the staff entrance, assuming Kuroo will follow — and he does. With unfairly long steps he manages to get to every door first and opens them for Kenma. When did they get to a point where Kuroo can distinguish what's a Kenma thing and what isn't anyway?

“What's in that box?” Kenma asks when they're outside, the late autumn sun doing its hardest to warm up anything and failing miserably. For the short walk to the dining hall without a jacket it's enough though.

“Oh!” Kuroo perks up noticeably. “It's apple pie.”

Kenma’s eyes fix on the box in Kuroo's hand. It's far bigger than one piece should warrant and usually, he buys himself a balanced lunch at the dining hall and eats healthy to nourish his brain — his words. So he brought it along intending to share it then. There's no way he'd eat more than a piece by himself and he probably would have saved it for later then too instead of lugging it around with him. But why would he bring pie to share on a random Thursday? Unless…

Kenma looks up and finds Kuroo looking at him already, eyebrows raising in question when instead of answering, Kenma just stares. “What?”

“Today's your birthday,” Kenma says then and watches the pleasant surprise of being found out register on Kuroo's features before they morph into a wide grin. He looks happy, the slightest hint of red coloring his cheeks. Though that could be the cold air.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Kenma says and means that there was no guessing at all. He's perceptive, he saw the clues and did the math, easy as pie. Explains the disappointment in Kuroo at finding none of them and the hesitancy in approaching Kenma as well. He wanted it to not be a big deal but still a deal. That knowledge softens Kenma's voice a fair bit when he says, “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.” Kuroo beams at him and Kenma forces his eyes back to the ground in front of him. So stupid. Akaashi probably knew — all part of building cross-team relationships to know the birthdays of seemingly everyone — and that's the reason he didn't cancel. He didn't want Kuroo to eat alone on his birthday. He could have at least given Kenma a heads-up though.

When they reach the dining hall and Kenma mentally readies himself to brave the noise and mass of people to find them a table to eat at, Kuroo stops him with a tap on his shoulder and holds out the box in a silent question. Kenma takes it all too willingly.

“Should I bring along a spoon for you?”

Instead of answering, Kenma says, “Apple pie’s my favorite,” before he beelines it for his preferred table in the corner by the row of windows when he sees the people at it getting ready to get up.

Kuroo doesn't just bring back two spoons to share the pie with but also lets Kenma take home what they don't finish.

Maybe he's not so bad after all.

————

Kenma has a routine.

He's not an early riser but on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, he forces himself to be at work by 8 am. He’s done with his work hours by lunchtime this way and then most days stays around to eat with the others before going home. It gives him the chance to spend his afternoons testing games and preparing content for the rest of the week and also taking care of any business relating to Bouncing Ball.

On Fridays, Kenma usually gets in at around 10 am having given up on the pretense of being an early riser and while it means he has to stay a bit longer, it still leaves his afternoon and also the rest of the weekend free and him with enough energy to actually enjoy it and not fall asleep during his usual Friday stream — that happened once and never again.

Wednesdays though, those are a wild card.

Some days he's at the office at 8 am, some at 10 am, depending on how long his Tuesday stream went on for. More often than not he only comes in during the afternoon — he has a standing agreement with his boss that no one should ever look for him on Wednesdays — and stays until official work hours end at 8 pm. Those are usually the days where he spends his morning sitting through meetings concerning any of his other jobs. And these are also usually the days when he needs to get something done at the library and he does not want people talking to him and interrupting him. The chances of that are much lower in the afternoon.

Today is one of those days and while he doesn’t come in that late, he only shows up when the others have already gone to lunch. Even though he actually has a reason to be here later. And it’s not that he needs to do a lot of mental prep work before he dares to venture out onto the library floors and take a look at the actual issue but he likes taking as much time as he can to prepare. Because something always goes wrong.

The issue he has to deal with today: one of their self-checkout machines being a little bitch and not wanting to work properly. Most times it's just dust or smudges on the scanner, easily fixed, sometimes it's a loose contact that is a hassle to find and fix. Rarely it's an actual issue with the software though, which Kenma could fix from his office and would take over everything else.

Kenma hates those machines with a passion.

He hates them even more than having to don his name tag and showing himself outside of his office and the staff areas. Which is exactly why this is a Wednesday afternoon thing. Preferably past 6 pm when it's just students manning the service desks and only dedicated people hunched over books and computers to learn. But his personal life — Akaashi making him go to the movies — dictated for him to be done by then already, so in addition to one springy student manning the circulation desk, there are also two staff members around watching his every move as he carries some cleaning supplies, keyboard and mouse and a few books to the self-checkout machine in question and dumps them on the small desk space next to it.

At least it's Kuroo sitting at the reference desk and he grins and waves at Kenma when he spots him before returning his full attention to the phone call he's on. Kenma ignores him in favor of not dropping anything.

At the circ desk, there's Daishou, and Kenma ignores him on purpose. If Kenma had to name a single person he despises in this library then he'd be right at the top. Their vibes are just off and on such different ends of the spectrum that every time they are forced to interact Kenma spends the whole time gritting his teeth to not say anything insulting directly to his face.

But ignoring is easy when he gets to work and just blends out whatever is happening around him. He's vaguely aware of Kuroo coming and going once, probably asking something that was definitely not answered with Kenma's non-committal hum but he just wants to get this done and go back to his office. Cross-team relationships be damned.

A hand against his lower back brings him back to reality forcefully.

He flinches hard when he feels it, his hand knocking down the books he uses for testing, and doesn't know where to move his body to to get away from the touch. He ends up spinning around and comes face to face with a man in his mid-forties, starting to bald and looking a little out of it. Behind him, Kenma can see that the only occupied spot at the staff desks is the student one who's currently in the middle of dealing with a phone call while another patron is standing at the desk waiting. Probably because Daishou is nowhere to be found — not surprising — and Kuroo isn't around either — more surprising. Since the desk isn't staffed by two students yet, he knows for sure that neither of them is done with their shift.

“Can I help you with something, sir?” Kenma forces out despite the slimy feeling crawling up his throat. He wants to be anywhere but here and between the self-checkout machines in his back and the dude in front of there's not much space to be, not many ways to bolt. Breathe, he reminds himself but when he's hit with the sour smell of alcohol, he has to stop himself from gagging. He blinks, eyes trying to find a place to rest that’s not the guy's face but doesn’t make Kenma feel even more like he’s cowering. He spots Kuroo then in the far-off corner of the wide open space that is the lowest level of the library, leaning over a computer and helping a patron do god knows what. Probably something dumb like sending an attachment via email. People have really regressed and the proof is right in front of him.

Now see, Kenma is over his social anxiety. He's learned to handle it and he's doing well. He has no issues speaking with strangers like cashiers or business people for Bouncing Ball endeavors or friends of friends at social gatherings because he knows those conversations will follow some form of code and that code is “do not come close to me unless I let you” because he has learned to perfect that vibe to a T. And most people don't care about touching a stranger anyway. And in the cases they seem to do, Kenma knows when to excuse himself and search for different conversations. But that doesn't mean his anxiety is gone. It's just under control.

So sometimes it still rears its ugly head. When a stranger on the train is pressed too close for too long because there's no space left, or when he's stuck in crowds at events. Or in cases like this where someone just assumes they can touch him and surprises him with it.

“Oh, you're not-” the guy trails off, blinking slowly before his face morphs into some form of thinly veiled disgust. “Look a little less like-”

“I'm going to kindly ask you to leave the library, sir,” Kenma interjects, forcing the words out of his throat because he has vague ideas about the end of that sentence without even hearing it, and while he doesn’t care, is sure he’s heard worse in high school, it bothers him that this guy thinks he has any right to be rude. Being polite to patrons is all nice and fun until they aren't nice in return. But they have rules and insulting staff is reason enough to be sent off the premises. Case in point where is their damn security guy anyway? He should be able to see this happening if he's for once doing his fucking job. Looking for him would mean turning around though and turning his back on the guy in front of him is not something Kenma wants to do.

“What, you're kicking me out? I haven't done anything.” The guy takes a slight step back but it's not enough to take off the weight sitting on Kenma's chest.

He blinks, avoiding the guy's glare. The student is still on the phone. Where the fuck is Daishou and what the hell is taking Kuroo so damn long? There’s a reason why there’s always supposed to be at least two people at the service desks and it’s not so that they can take pee breaks without leaving it unattended.

“I'm asking you to leave on free terms, sir. There's a difference.” Kenma's mouth is starting to feel dry, his hands clammy and his eyes flit back to the far corner at the exact moment that Kuroo looks up from the computer and towards him. For once it's a blessing that Kuroo is smart and can read the room because he's excusing himself in the blink of an eye, while Kenma speaks words that have been drilled into him by Akaashi over the years, “If you'd rather be escorted out by security feel free to let me know.”

“Do you even know who you're talking to?” The guy’s puffing himself up now, turning red in the face and Kenma would like to think he’d be decent enough and apologize for his mistake if he wasn't drunk. As it is, Kenma couldn't care less. He's not being paid enough to be here.

“No. We have rules at our library, sir. Those apply to all of our patrons. Since you can't seem to follow them, I'm asking you to leave.”

“Now listen-”

“Is there a problem here?”

Kuroo's presence is massive. He looms where Kenma's need to disappear has made him smaller and fold back against the self-checkout behind him, even though he's still standing strong. And the expression on his face is one that Kenma has seen on plenty of thugs in his games. A little neutral but a lot more don't-think-about-messing-with-me. It suits him in an odd way and Kenma wonders for a split second if this is just something you learn to intimidate your opponents on a volleyball court.

The guy turns to Kuroo and Kenma uses the chance to step out into the free space next to them and collect the spilled books from the ground as well as his other things. He fumbles his way through turning the self-checkout machine off. He's not doing this today. Daishou and the students can deal with the added workload for one evening.

“This guy just came on to me and-”

“Sir,” Kuroo interrupts. “I’d like to see your ID please.”

“I'm not giving you my ID, what would you need that for?”

“House ban,” Kuroo says and the fake smile is so loud in his voice. “We'll need to know who to send it to.”

The guy balks. “What, that’s-”

Somewhere in the staff area behind the desks, there should be a sign for the self-checkout being out of order and Kenma ducks away to find it. His fingers feel shaky as he pulls open a drawer, then another. One of the books slips from his arms, meets the ground loudly, and he picks it back up again, flustered.

“Or you can just leave and get off with a warning.”

Just find the fucking sign, that's all he needs. Why can’t the circ department keep their damn area in order? He really needs to have a word with Akaashi about this.

“Do you even know who you are talking to?” the guy says once more, voice level rising.

“Yo, Kozume-san,” Daishou says somewhere next to Kenma and he reaches his limit. “Defeated by the self-checkout machines once again?”

“Fuck off!” he snaps, slams the drawer shut, and looks everywhere except at Daishou or Kuroo or that guy. “Put the stupid out-of-order sign on it yourself, I'll come back tomorrow.”

Then he hightails it out of there.

—

He's still sitting at his desk, hoodie drawn up over his head, to narrow his field of vision even more than his hair already does and every fiber of his being focused on breathing and ignoring that on some days he still feels like a child playing dress up — who cares about the achievements when they don't fix any issues — when there's the familiar motion of Kuroo’s fingers tapping against his computer screen. Kenma should have seen his hand move into his field of vision but he feels like he's staring through a tunnel and he still flinches.

“Sorry,” he mumbles when he sees Kuroo lift his hands, trying to make himself appear non-threatening. As if Kenma would ever be threatened by him. Kenma tries to blink himself back into reality a bit but it's not much use, his whole body feels wrung out and he's so fucking tired but at the same time so wired still.

“Akaashi-san called,” Kuroo says, ignoring the elephant in the room. “Said you two had plans but you weren't answering your phone.”

Right, plans. The thought of worrying Akaashi spurs some part of his brain into motion, enough for him to blindly reach for his phone sitting right where he left it earlier. There are three missed calls and two text messages. The clock reads half past six. He opens their chat and types back a simple “Panic attack, sorry,” without taking in a single word of Akaashi's messages.

Akaashi's reply is instant as if he's been hovering over his phone: “All good. Rain check.”

Kuroo must have filled him in on his side of the story already when they talked.

Two seconds later a phone begins to ring and Kenma watches with some abject horror, that even pierces through the fog of exhaustion, as Kuroo takes out his own phone and looks at the screen in confusion. He answers it.

“Yeah?”

Kenma can't hear the other side of the conversation but he knows it's Akaashi. If he already sent Kuroo down here, then he just as likely would call him to make sure Kenma eats something and goes home. Fuck him for caring. Why was he even worried about a guy acting like he's his mother?

“Hang up on him right now,” he snaps when Kuroo opens his mouth to reply.

His eyes flick up to meet Kenma's and he utters a very eloquent, “Huh?”

“I said, hang up on Akaashi, right now.”

Akaashi's laughter is audible through the line even if his next line is garbled again.

“Yeah, sure,” Kuroo says a second later and then holds out the phone to Kenma who snatches it out of his hand as if it's a new release of his favorite game series.

“Why are you such a nosy bitch,” he says into the phone and hears Akaashi laugh once more while Kuroo just looks at him with thinly veiled amusement. Maybe there's also some shock at his choice of words but Kenma couldn't care less.

“You’ll tell me what happened tomorrow?”

“Since you won’t leave me alone if I don’t, obviously yes.”

“And you'll make sure to eat when you get home?”

“Yes, mother.” He drags out the words as much as he can. “Can I hang up now?”

“Tell Kuroo-san thank you from me for checking on you.”

“Tell him yourself tomorrow.” Kenma hangs up then, done with Akaashi being a good friend and him having to suffer through it. Life's unfair like that. He holds the phone back out to Kuroo, who takes it with a small smile.

And then an odd silence settles over them that makes Kenma's inside squirm unpleasantly. Kuroo just watches him and seems to consider what he could possibly say right now and it makes Kenma want to get out of here even more so than the panic attack had. So he goes through the routine of shutting down his computer and collecting his things from his desk as Kuroo just stands there watching. It honestly becomes a little less daunting the longer it goes on and by the time Kenma gets up from his chair and pulls on his jacket and bag, Kuroo looks finally ready to speak. So Kenma gives him a metaphorical hand — because after all Kuroo did jump in when Kenma needed him to earlier — and stops in front of Kuroo, meets his eyes, and just waits him out.

“Did you-” Kuroo starts, clears his throat. “You take the train, right? Would you mind company on the walk to the station?”

A roundabout way of asking if Kenma’s fine by himself. Which he would be. He's done this dance under different circumstances before. He still finds himself saying, “I'll wait at the staff entrance for you.”

“Great!” Kuroo pauses for another second before he seems to realize that he'll have to leave first to get his stuff before he can come back. Then he turns to the door, and is already at it when he throws a lopsided smile to Kenma and says, “See ya in five.”

Idiot, Kenma thinks as he watches the door swing shut, stupid, kind-hearted idiot.

————

That day they take the train home together and it's not the last time either.

They figure out that Kenma only lives a few stops further up the same line as Kuroo takes and thus in addition to the lunch calendar entries, Kuroo slowly starts adding entries when he has the last reference desk shift on a Wednesday or when he plans to leave earlier, and slowly but surely Kenma starts to restructure his weekly schedule around it. Bit by bit and after a while they take the train home together quite often. Except for Fridays. Who the hell stays longer than necessary on a Friday?

And then one day, one stupid bright morning, where Kenma is slumped over his bag, Switch clutched in his hands and more or less blindly tapping at the buttons because he's so tired still, a figure slumps into the seat next to him, taps the top of his screen and says, “Whatcha playing?”

Kenma wants to punch Kuroo in the face. He's a morning person, of course, he fucking is. That just rounds off his whole annoying persona perfectly.

“Pokemon.”

“What's that?”

“Do you not know Pokemon?” Kenma tries his best to not sound as disgusted as he feels by the mere idea of that. It doesn't really work and Kuroo laughs.

“Hm, don't think I've heard of it.” The irony in Kuroo's voice is so loud but Kenma still throws him a glare for taking a dig at him and regrets it immediately. Kuroo looks put together at all times because of his damn need to wear dress pants and ironed shirts all day every day — they don't have a dress code that goes beyond looking presentable and decent, so it's really just Kuroo's preference — but Kenma more often than not only sees him at lunch when he's a little wind swept by work and annoying conversations already. But seeing him this fresh and wrapped up in a scarf and his long jacket, teeth showing in his wide grin, cheeks flushed from the cold, and hair messy but on purpose still, makes Kenma feel like he's going to scream.

He huddles back down into his seat, tucks himself further into his game and Kuroo leaves him be for most of the ride and just watches him play. He seems to have picked up easily on the fact that Kenma is not a morning person. Small blessings. When they get further into the city and the train car fills up more, he scoots a bit closer to Kenma to make more room for the person next to him. It traps Kenma efficiently against the divider to the door but it's not unwelcome. Plastic is better than people. He almost always picks this seat for a reason.

“Sorry,” Kuroo says at some point when movement jostles them into each other but Kenma just hums. Kuroo's only apologizing because he thinks Kenma doesn't like people touching him in general after what happened a few weeks back — they barely talked about it but they had to make a formal report to the head of the user services department and thus Kuroo had heard the full story whether Kenma wanted him to or not. And his conclusion isn't wrong but there are levels to whether or not Kenma minds being touched and sometimes they adjust to his mood on a daily basis. But there is a list of people for whom he never minds as much as with others — Akaashi became one of them early after they started their friendship, Tora forced himself onto the list during an evening at a bar, where Kenma had his first and last experience with drinking in public, and Kuroo just seems to be the next logical person to add. He can read Kenma's mood well enough, he wouldn't take advantage if given permission.

“I'm fine with you touching me, Kuro,” Kenma mumbles into the collar of his jacket, the second O of Kuroo’s name swallowed by the fabric, as he wins another fight on screen. Kuroo doesn't respond and Kenma thinks for a moment that his words got drowned out in the bustle of the train but then Kuroo leans the tiniest bit closer, pressing their shoulders purposefully together and just stays there.

“Kuro, huh?” he says, voice smooth and pleased at the notion of a nickname. Kenma doesn’t have the heart to tell him he misheard.

So he hums once more, takes the added weight, and continues playing.

————

Kenma is never on the third floor of the library.

He moves between his office, the offices of the circulation team, and the staff desks in the public area and that’s about it. On very rare occasions he ventures out to Tora's office on the second floor but the third and fourth floor are as much a mystery to Kenma as the stacks are.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. Because while he's not done with work, he feels an anxiousness crawling under his skin that makes it impossible to continue, caused by the sheer fact of seeing the guy from last month mill about the library when Kenma added a new script into their library management system at the service desks. He's not one to linger on past panic attacks but the urge to stop breathing and run had been there and very present and while he finished his task before bailing, it's also not that long until lunch that he can't take these twenty minutes and do jackshit to calm down again. Wouldn’t be much use to start something new anyway and he can check his emails one more time after lunch before he goes home.

So he finds a place to hide out and to do what he does best on those occasions: exist and let himself be distracted by someone else.

Except his usual spot — Akaashi’s office — isn't available because there's a note on the door, proclaiming a meeting in progress. That’s just his luck. Kenma stares at the sign for a second, faintly able to hear Akaashi's diplomatic but annoyed voice through the door, before he turns and makes his way to the elevator. He's got one other option otherwise he'll just return to his own desk.

Hence why he's now on the third floor. He takes a second to orientate himself and then wanders down the right part of the hallway towards a door at the far end.

It's open, the sound of vigorous typing escaping the room, and Kenma knows that Kuro's alone in there. After all, he's been complaining all week about Kai being out sick because Kuro’s someone who likes company, but Kenma still hesitates to barge in. It took him much longer to feel comfortable distracting Akaashi from his work than he's now considering doing to Kuro. And there's nothing wrong with it, Kuro has shown up at his desk from time to time but Kenma was never his sole reason for visiting the IT department. At least he never made it seem that way.

This feels a little different.

But Kuro is a grown man, he can kick Kenma out if he doesn't want him around and wants to work in peace. And Kenma doesn't need to have someone talk to him, he'd also be good with just sitting there and being allowed to tap away on his phone in peace. He's sure they can find a middle ground.

So he takes the last few steps and knocks on the door frame once as he steps inside — just because he drops all honorifics the second he’s allowed to doesn't mean he can't be polite — and by the time Kuro's managed to look up and blink himself out of his work stupor, Kenma's already taken a seat in Kai’s empty desk chair right across from him.

“It's not lunchtime yet,” Kuro says in place of a greeting, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. He's wearing glasses and his sleeves are rolled up. Maybe Kenma shouldn’t have come here after all.

“Don't feel like working,” Kenma answers. He tucks a leg underneath himself and pushes his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, settles in. All while Kuro watches him like a hawk.

They've never explicitly talked about work ethics but Kenma's heard through multiple sources that Kuro is hard-working, giving his best at all times, and not a slacker. He delivers early or on time, his ideas are good and Kenma knows the library's social media presence has improved considerably since Kuro joined the team because he actually knows what he's talking about. He's a go-getter and good at what he does. His charm is just a bonus to make the others feel less bad about not matching up to him.

Kenma would call himself the exact opposite. He's good at what he does sure but if he sees issues he keeps quiet about them until someone else makes them into his issues or they bother him specifically. Sometimes if he's gracious and the issues seem like they could become far too troublesome if left untouched, he picks them up earlier. But mostly he works on command and with limited motivation. He likes the job but it wouldn't be the end all if he got fired. He's been considering going into streaming and content creation full-time for a while now and he's got a stable enough fan base that he thinks it possible. This job is just for fun and company.

Either way, it wouldn't surprise Kenma if Kuro judges him for slacking off on company time.

But Kuro wouldn't be Kuro if he didn't do the exact opposite of what Kenma expects of him sometimes.

This time it comes in the form of him grinning, jumping up, and crossing the distance to the door in a few steps. He takes the “in a meeting” sign off the wall and slaps it against the outer side of the door before he pushes it shut. He turns back to Kenma. “Want a juice box?”

Kuro's excitement makes this feel like kids skipping class the first time, Kenma thinks, all because of the simple prospect of getting something from a vending machine together. For some reason it makes heat rise in Kenma's face. “What do you have?”

“Banana, watermelon, and apple.”

Kenma considers how much sugar and artificial flavor he needs right now and then says, “Watermelon.”

Kuro pulls open a drawer and a second later throws a juice box to him. Kenma fumbles to catch it, one hand getting stuck in the pocket of his hoodie. “What else do you keep in there?”

“Sweets mostly,” Kuro says as he sticks a straw into his juice box. Apple. “You might think all I eat is healthy food but some days simply require sugar to be bearable.”

Kenma makes a noise in agreement and punctures his own juice box. The first sip tastes like too much and makes Kenma remember for a second why he's up here. He chokes on it, coughs a little and Kuro is still watching him.

“You okay?”

The question seems to run deeper than just his current coughing fit but Kenma croaks out a “Yeah,” and Kuro leaves him be at that.

Kuro takes a loud sip of his juice. “Akaashi-san and I are going to one of Bokuto’s games on Saturday. You wanna come?”

It's funny how Kenma knew that sooner or later Kuro would take Kenma's place for those outings but how he never considered Kuro to take over for Akaashi and keep offering the invitation to him as well. He's becoming sloppy. “At what time?”

“The game starts at 10:30 but we wanted to get breakfast beforehand, so 9 am.”

Kenma grimaces.

Kuro laughs quietly. “Yeah, I figured that was too early for you.”

Kenma stays quiet in response because what is there to say when Kuro is absolutely correct in this case? Kuro takes another sip of his juice box as he leans back in his chair, eyes flitting to the ceiling.

“Hm, I wonder. What would be a good enough reason for Kozume Kenma to get up early?”

“Get up or stay up?” At Kuro's questioning look, Kenma says, “I get up early to feed my cat but that doesn't mean I stay up.”

“You have a cat?”

Kenma hums his affirmation. “Miso’s been one of my alarm clocks since middle school. She's hungrier than I'm stubborn most days.”

“That’s cute.” Kuro's mouth quirks up into a smile. Kenma lowers his eyes, realizing that just like Kuro has been watching him, he's been watching him right back. He drinks half his juice in one go to calm the heat prickling at the back of his neck. “Then any reasons that you'd stay up for?”

“Food, I suppose.”

“So if I made you a bento to eat during the match, would you show up?”

Kenma furrows his brow. He's seen the bentos Kuro makes himself. He doesn't bring them often but when he does they look made with care and balanced and while a bit too healthy for Kenma's taste, they do look tasty. But it wouldn't be enough to get him out of his bed. “No.”

“And what if I throw in a piece of homemade apple pie?”

“That's extortion,” Kenma mumbles and throws a glare at Kuro. He knows damn well that Kenma loves apple pie and there's not much he wouldn't do for a fresh piece of it. Especially homemade. It just hits the spot differently than the ones from bakeries and cafes.

Kuro's grinning and looks far too proud of himself. Kenma fumes on the inside. “Well, is it working?”

“No.”

Kuro's grin widens and Kenma's frown deepens. “I think it is.”

“It isn't.”

“It is.”

“It isn't.”

Kuro opens his mouth and Kenma is ready to throw his now empty juice box at him to shut him up when there's a ping from Kuro's computer. He glances at the screen, then says, “Lunch time!” as he plucks the glasses off his face while already standing up and rolling his sleeves back down. Good, letting him lose on other people would have been a crime otherwise.

Kenma is slower in unfurling himself from Kai’s chair and watches Kuro collect his things quietly. His head is still stuck on the possibility of getting his hands on that apple pie again. It's been months since Kuro brought it in but Kenma still very much can recall the taste of it. It was that good and finding out Kuro was good at baking, too, wasn't as surprising as it was infuriating back then. Now it's just another blip on the long list of things that make Kuro Kuro and someone Kenma doesn't mind having around.

They’re in the elevator, Kuro pressing the button for the ground floor when Kenma mumbles, “If I show up and there's no pie, you better get ready to die.”

In response, Kuro laughs, bumps their arms together, and says, “Pie’s not something I’d lie about.”

And sure enough, when Kenma shows up at the gymnasium on Saturday, bleary-eyed and tired from the combination of a late night stream and an early morning, Kuro hands him a breakfast bento and a box with a piece of apple pie. Kenma quietly but happily digs into both once they've found themselves seats.

He can feel Akaashi's eyes watching him intently until the game starts and flickering back to him whenever there's a long enough pause in gameplay and conversation to allow it. He's obviously waiting for some sort of explanation from Kenma about what the hell he's doing here.

Kenma's not quite sure himself, so he ignores him steadfastly.

————

“Oh my god, Kenma is going to love this!”

Tora’s loud voice announces his presence long before he turns the corner at the end of the hallway and comes into Kenma's sight where he's waiting with Akaashi at the staff entrance.

“Just tell me what you're talking about,” is Kuro's much quieter but no less audible reply. He sounds put out like this isn't the first time Tora has said that sentence. Kenma glances at Akaashi who just shrugs in return.

“Nooo, man, you need to see his face first. It's going to be hilarious.”

They round the corner then and Kenma feels his face go slack for a split second before it's overtaken by utter disgust. “What the hell are you wearing?”

Kenma thinks that this must finally be the payback for all those times he didn't finish his vegetables as a child. There's an uncomfortable heat crawling up his face.

Kuro looks down at himself and plucks at the hem of his hoodie. He looks confused, a little unsure even. “I'm visiting my family after work, I thought something more comfortable would be better for the longer train ride.”

Kenma makes a noise he isn't proud of before he covers his face and turns away. He could have dealt with seeing Kuro in his usual gray dress pants combined with a simple black hoodie. That would have been fine if unexpected. It would have given Kenma something to think about for a day or so but it wouldn't have been life-altering. This though, is just unfair and a crime against Kenma personally.

“See, see Kuroo-san,” Tora says loudly, sounding so damn excited. “Kenma can make such good faces.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Kenma hisses behind his hands but doesn't turn back around. Tora just got bumped to number one on Kenma's hit list

“Bouncing Ball, huh? Is that merch?” Akaashi says with poorly concealed amusement and after Kenma collected himself enough to kill Tora, Akaashi will be next.

“Yeah,” Kuro says, and while there's some confusion still left in his voice, he seems happy to talk about his stupid hoodie. “They have good fits for tall people like they put some thought into it. And they sponsor volleyball players and support some clubs at local schools, so it feels like my money is going somewhere that fits my interest, you know?”

“They support volleyball. Interesting,” Akaashi says, surprise so fake that it offends Kenma personally. “Did you know that, Kenma? You used to be all up to date with what they're up to.”

Kenma rips his hands from his face and turns towards Akaashi to glare at him. "Akaashi."

“Okay, what's going on?” At the obvious annoyance in Kuro's voice, Kenma finally looks back at him, fixes his eyes very pointedly on his face, and ignores his upper body as best as he can. He still takes note of the hand he has propped on his hip. It doesn't make anything better. “Is there some kind of joke I'm not getting? Is there some scandal they're involved in or something?”

“No scandals,” Kenma forces out because he can't have anyone getting any ideas. Kuro meets his eyes. “I-”

“Bouncing Ball is Kenma’s,” Tora says, slinging an arm across Kuro's shoulder. His other hand comes up to pat Kuro's chest right above the logo. It's one of the older versions, Kenma notes, and feels a new surge of embarrassment rise. “It's his little pet project.”

Kuro's very eloquent, “Hah?” perfectly sums up how Kenma is feeling.

“Can we not do this here?” Kenma forces out, very aware that they are still standing in the middle of the workplace where he's only known as Kozume Kenma and nothing else, except for the select group of people he calls his friends. He'd like to keep it that way. There's a reason why he isn't the public face of Bouncing Ball. Kuro is staring at him like Kenma suddenly grew a second head.

“Let’s talk about this over lunch, shall we?” Akaashi places his hand on Kenma's shoulder and steers him towards the staff entrance. “That might be a better setting for this.”

Tora cackles as he excuses himself, says, “I don't have time today. I just wanted to see Kenma's stupid face.”

Kenma wishes he'd gone home early today or that murder was workplace-appropriate.

—

“So let me get this straight,” Kuro says, around a mouthful of fish and Kenma wrinkles his nose in disgust. The odd charm of seeing Kuro in his merch, that raised most of his embarrassment earlier, is gone completely in the face of this. “You work at the library part-time, you stream on three to four evenings of the week when you aren't creating content for your YouTube channel, and you're the CEO of Bouncing Ball. And when none of those tickle your fancy, you do stock trading.”

“Yeah.”

“And you still sleep and have a life besides those things.”

“For the most part.”

“Huh.” Kuro looks down at his hoodie, then back at Kenma. “That's kind of amazing.”

Kenma feels a new wave of heat rising on his face.

“He's too smart for his own good and gets bored easily,” Akaashi says as if it explains why Kenma has around five jobs that feel more like hobbies on good days and like a slight inconvenience on bad ones.

Kenma lowers his gaze to his half-eaten lunch and considers how much more he can stomach. Today's been an adventure. He pushes the tray away from himself.

“Eat,” Kuro and Akaashi say at the same time and Kenma rolls his eyes.

“Didn’t we just discuss that I got my life figured out? I don't need you two to mother hen me.”

“Sure you don’t,” Akaashi says with such conviction that Kenma almost thinks he's being taken seriously for once.

Except Kuro laughs and pushes the tray right back towards Kenma. “Good brains need good food. Eat your vegetables.”

Well, he can bargain with that. He lifts his gaze to Kuro. “If you promise to never bring up the Bouncing Ball thing or anything we talked about today, I'll eat.”

Kuro nods. “Sure, I can keep a secret.”

“And don't wear that stupid hoodie again.”

“Ah.” He once more looks down at the hoodie. “But I like it. I meant what I said. You have a good thing going there.”

“Then wear it somewhere that's not work!” Kenma wonders if his face will ever return to a normal temperature again. “I don't want to see you wearing it. End of discussion.”

For a second Kuro looks disappointed, like he's losing something. Then a mischievous glint sparks in his eyes. “What if I bring you back a piece of my grandmother’s apple pie?”

Kenma is so, so close to screaming or strangling someone, Kuro preferably. Though Tora would be fine, too. He started this mess. Why does he have to deal with this? Who made these people decide that they're his friends?

“It's better than mine,” Kuro sing-songs.

“Fine! Wear it all you want but don't expect me to acknowledge you in it.” Kenma bites as he picks up some mushrooms with his chopsticks. He shoves them into his mouth. “I hate all of you.”

“Welcome to your first row seat of witnessing, what too much attention and praise does to Kozume Kenma,” Akaashi says.

“It’s cute,” Kuro says, a wide grin on his face. He's obviously happy that he once more won him over with that stupid pie of his.

“Shut up, Tetsurou,” Kenma grumbles and continues stuffing his face. He very pointedly ignores the way Kuro's smirk softens into a look of surprise at his first name being used.

“Oh boy,” Akaashi mumbles and Kenma kicks for him underneath the table.

————

The doorbell rings and rings and nothing happens.

Kenma purses his lips and wonders how long he’s okay to stand here without it looking like he’s loitering. The plastic bag in his hand rustles softly in the wind. He's pretty certain the curtain from the window of the next-door apartment just fluttered shut. The mask on his face probably isn’t making him look any more trustworthy. He draws his shoulders up higher, eyes fixed on the scuff marks along the bottom of the door.

He presses the doorbell again. Just one more time.

This is Akaashi’s fault. Kenma wouldn’t have come here on his own accord. He considered it for a split second, sure, but if there hadn’t been an inconspicuous scrap of paper with an address scrawled onto lying on Kenma’s desk when he returned from lunch, he wouldn’t have. Kenma could tell it was Akaashi’s handwriting immediately and decided then and there that he would never ask where he got that address from lest it make him an accomplice in the misuse of patron data. But with the added hints that Akaashi hadn’t heard from Kuro in two days — “He must be really sick if he isn’t even answering messages from Bokuto,” Akaashi had pointedly said during lunch and Kenma’s stomach had dropped unpleasantly — Kenma found himself slowly but surely guilt-tripped into taking a detour on his way home.

And maybe Kuro being out sick is Kenma’s fault.

Statistically speaking it’s incredibly unlikely. They encounter so many people each day on the train rides alone and Kuro spends much more time in the public parts of the library and with other coworkers. He could have caught it anywhere from anyone.

But in theory, he could have caught whatever he has from Kenma, who, very much not the model citizen, had come into work last week with a fever and a runny nose because it was Friday and he didn’t feel horrible enough to skip and there was a meeting that had been rescheduled twice already and Kenma just wanted to get it over with. He took some medicine, he wore a mask the whole day, and he didn’t even eat during lunch to keep the possibility of spreading his germs to a minimum. He’d been stupid but smart about the execution nonetheless. If anything, it’s Kuro’s own fault for making sure Kenma got home without falling asleep on the train or running into traffic, and then deciding to be horrified when Kenma told him, he had enough instant ramen in the house to survive for about a month, in response to Kuro’s question if he needed anything.

Anyway, Kenma had gotten a home-cooked meal out of it, including leftovers for the next day, and company while he fell asleep underneath his kotatsu, stomach full and Miso’s purr loud where she had made herself comfortable under the careful pets of Kuro’s big hands. At that moment Kuro contracting whatever Kenma was plagued with hadn't been on either of their minds.

On Monday Kenma had been fine again. On Tuesday Kuro had been out sick the first day.

The scuff marks on the door give way to a pair of socked feet. There’s a hole in the left one, Kenma wrinkles his nose behind his mask. He looks up, finds Kuro leaning heavily on the door, his face is deathly pale, and his shirt clings to him with feverish sweat, the Bouncing Ball logo on it peeling — karma, Kenma thinks, and chooses to not look too closely at the fact that Kuro seems to use it as a pajama replacement.

Kuro opens his mouth to say something but his voice breaks off into a coughing fit before the first syllable even leaves him.

Kenma takes a step back. “Akaashi was worried about you.”

“Only Akaashi?”, Kuro croaks before he’s overtaken by another coughing fit. It sounds like it’s sitting deep in his chest, wet and rough.

Kenma purses his lips and lifts the plastic bag in his hand. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

The small smile on Kuro’s face is so fond that it feels wrong to look at and Kenma’s not sure if he should be seeing it in the first place or if Kuro is even aware of his expression in his feverish haze. Kenma drops his eyes to the floor. He’s glad that his mask is hiding most of the flush rising on his cheeks. He’s here out of guilt and nothing else, he reminds himself.

“Can I come in?” he asks a spur-of-the-moment decision.

“Don’t think you want to,” Kuro mumbles. “It’s not very clean.”

“You’re sick. If you have energy left to clean but not to answer text messages, I would question your priorities.”

Kuro’s laugh breaks off into another cough, he sways slightly.

“I don’t mind,” Kenma stresses because he feels like Kuro’s been standing around long enough and should be back in a more horizontal position.

Kuro makes a noise and then steps back, shuffling his way back into his apartment, while Kenma follows a bit slower, slipping his shoes off in the genkan. “Sorry for the intrusion.”

By the time he straightens back up, Kuro has slipped open the door to the balcony to air out the stuffy smell of sickness and sweat hanging in the room. The apartment is small, leading from the genkan into the kitchen into a small living area, where Kuro now flops onto one of the floor pillows at the low table, breathing shallowly. There’s an open door showing a hint of what seems to be the bedroom and Kenma settles a bit more carefully across from Kuro. He upturns the plastic bag above the table, spills the contents in between a few used glasses and half-read volleyball magazines.

“I didn’t know what you already had,” Kenma offers as an explanation of the amount of different medication. Kuro plucks one up — cough syrup, figures — and opens the box up with shaky fingers.

“Thank you,” Kuro mumbles as he inspects the notes on usage. Kenma lets his eyes flit away then, over the stuffed bookshelf, the laundry swaying in the light breeze on the balcony, the pictures on the small desk. The mess Kuro warned about is mostly contained to the kitchen, used dishes stacked up and topped with some empty cup noodles — and here he was judging Kenma. Otherwise, there’s just some clothes strewn about, an upturned sports bag with a green jersey and shoes spilling out, and a towel hanging over the door to the bathroom. Kenma has seen worse, he’s been in the bedrooms of teenage boys before.

“When was the last time you showered?” Kenma asks when he returns his gaze back to Kuro, who’s making a face at the taste of the cough syrup.

“Dunno, what day do we have?”

“Thursday.”

“Tuesday then.” He sorts through the other medication, places what he doesn’t need back into the bag with slow calculated movements to conserve energy. “Been sleeping a lot. Being up is a challenge.”

Kenma hums and considers his options. He already intruded more than he planned to — he just wanted to drop off the medicine and see that Kuro was still alive so he could placate Akaashi — so doing more wouldn’t be that much of a stretch. He could consider anything beyond the medication as returning Kuro’s kindness from Friday. That would sound about right. “Go take a shower. You’ll feel better after.”

Kuro props his head up on his hand, letting his eyes flutter shut for a moment. It makes the dark circles underneath his eyes stand out more, the paleness of his skin against his hair. He looks ready to fall asleep again and Kenma decides for himself that there’s no way he’s at fault for whatever Kuro caught. He doubts his constitution is better than Kuro’s and while their symptoms are somewhat similar, Kuro’s seem ten times worse.

When Kuro doesn’t respond, Kenma adds, “I’ll stay and make sure you don’t die in the bathroom.”

“You know,” Kuro says, eyes opening again and finding Kenma’s easily. The feverish gleam is still there and there’s that smile again and Kenma is willing to blame anything Kuro says and does today on fever-induced insanity. “Yamamoto once said you don’t really care about us. I think you do. You just don’t like being seen while doing it. Am I right, Kenma?”

“Go shower, Kuro” Kenma’s voice is barely a whisper and he drops his eyes to the table, forces his shoulders to stay where they are, to not hunch up, and his hands to remain flat where they are pressed to his thighs. He’s not hiding. Hiding would be the same as admitting that Kuro is right.

Mercifully, Kuro follows his prompt this time, unfolds himself, and gets up with a heavy sigh. He gently pats Kenma’s head in passing, as he makes his way to the bedroom to collect a change of clothes. When he comes back out a minute later, he repeats the action, as if it’s just a normal thing they do now, as if he’s making sure Kenma knows he meant to do it. It’s the fever, Kenma still thinks to himself, as the bathroom door falls shut. It’s a logical explanation and reason enough for weird behavior. Kenma himself wouldn’t have accepted Kuro’s offer to walk him home on Friday if it hadn’t been for the heat in his head making him feel off-center and dizzy. There’s nothing to read into it.

The heavy heartbeat echoing in his ears and the heat burning in his face tell Kenma a different story.

He ignores both and gets to work cleaning up Kuro’s kitchen, so he can figure out something for him to eat.

————

Kenma is never the first one waiting around at lunch time and he's certainly never waiting outside for the other's. Especially not on a day like today where the air is stuffy with heat and just breathing makes you break out into a sweat.

But today he's doing both, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, eyes flitting around, taking note of every person in the near vicinity of the staff entrance of the library.

He's waiting, he feels a prickle of excitement that's not often there.

“Kenma!”

There he is, Kenma thinks and turns to the left and the person bounding up to him.

“Shouyou,” he greets in return, feeling a smile spread on his face.

In his head, Shouyou is still the short, scrawny kid he was in middle and high school, and it always takes Kenma a second to blend the version in his head with the reality of Shouyou being nearly as tall as he is and his much wider build. At least his toothy smile and the bright color of his hair remain unchanged and let Kenma know that some things are in fact constant. He's wearing a Bouncing Ball shirt and cap and it makes Kenma feel a bit prouder of what Shouyou achieved in the last years and that he was able to help just the tiniest bit.

It's been a few months since they've seen each other in person, keeping in touch mostly through phone calls and text messages and it's sheer luck that made them able to squeeze in lunch today. That it had to be during Kenma's working hours, giving them limited time is a little annoying but it's better than nothing. What's worse is that it had to be on a day when no one else from the lunch group outside of Kuro was working. Because Kenma's inability to leave Kuro to fend for himself is starting to get out of hand. So instead of telling Kuro he wasn't available for lunch today, he invited him along because why the hell not?

Volleyball idiot meeting a professional volleyball player, what possibly could go wrong?

“How was your flight?” Kenma asks, eyes taking note of the tan lines along Shouyou’s arms that never quite fade.

“Long as always,” he says, laughing. “I'm never going to get over how exhausting it is to sit still for that long.”

Kenma nods, and says absolutely seriously, “I could give you some pointers.”

“I'll take them, Kodzuken.”

“I told you not to-”

“Oy, Kenma.”

They both turn at his name and Kenma's responding, “Kuro,” gets drowned out by Shoyou shouting, “Rooster head!”

Kuro looks confused for all but a second before his eyes find Shouyou and he hesitates then responds with a just as enthusiastic if not as loud, “Small fry!”

“Look at you, all grown up,” Kuro adds as he steps closer to them, grin wide and eyes alight.

“You look just the same,” Shouyou responds but he's laughing and seemingly not offended at all by being called short. Then again, Kuro doesn't look put out either by being called ‘rooster head’. Kenma swallows down his laugh.

“You two know each other,” Kenma observes and this, this is exactly what he should have expected to go wrong. He shouldn't be surprised. It's just the same as with Kuro and Bokuto. Volleyball idiots know other volleyball idiots, that's just a fact.

“We played against each other during the spring tournament,” Shouyou says. “You came to watch that match, remember?”

Kenma furrows his brow, eyes going to Kuro and he tries his hardest to recall his face in any of his memories of the games he watched Shouyou play during high school. But there's nothing there. Maybe because he was never face to face on the court like Shouyou and he just saw them play from a distance. Except, he remembers a flash of red uniforms in one of the pictures in Kuro’s apartment, though he didn't look at it too closely, the people in it looked young enough to be of high school age.

“Nekoma?” he tries and with the way Kuro’s eyes light up, he figures he's right. “You lost against Karasuno .”

“Hell yeah we did, but it was an amazing game.” Kuro grins. “Now how do you two know each other? Met during high school?”

“Lunch,” Kenma reminds them before Shouyou can start speaking. “Let's get to the dining hall first.”

“He’s the friend you talked about?” Shouyou sounds far too excited by the idea of it and Kenma only makes an agreeing noise as they start walking, ignores Kuro cooing at him from behind, and slaps his hand away when he reaches out to ruffle his hair.

“You told him we're friends, I'm so honored.”

“Be quiet.”

“And I see he's allowed to wear Bouncing Ball stuff, huh?”, Kuro remarks and Kenma rolls his eyes.

“I'm his sponsor, of course, I want him to wear it.”

Kuro laughs, Shouyou's smiling and Kenma thinks this is fine.

—

It's not fine.

The conversation flows freely, led by Kuro who's far too interested in not just how Shouyou and Kenma met — middle school, Kenma hiding away from teachers to play his games in peace, and Shoyou looking for a place to practice and ending up forcing Kenma to throw him the ball — but how life's been treating Shouyou — very well but mostly because of hard work on Shouyou's part. At least Kuro seems aware enough that he's monopolizing the conversation because at some point he just goes quiet and focuses on eating, letting Kenma take hold of the conversation. It's not awkward, talking to Shouyou has always been somewhat easy but Kenma feels very much watched during those ten minutes. It's as if Kuro is absorbing every part of this new version of Kenma he's seeing. It makes Kenma want to hide.

Kuro leaves shortly after that, earlier than their lunchtime ends, citing a shift at the reference desk as the reason but Kenma could spot that lie blindfolded. But Kuro doesn't leave without ruffling Kenma's hair and this time Kenma lets him. If only because he's too busy watching him with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. Kuro saw something he didn't want to, Kenma’s certain of it though he has no idea what. Their conversation felt normal.

“So,” Shouyou says and Kenma can hear in his tone that he's not going to like the next part of the conversation.

“Let’s not,” Kenma says. “Or do you want me to ask about your love life as well?”

Shouyou grins. “Mine’s just fine. Volleyball is treating me well and sometimes even takes me out to dinner.” He gestures around the room. “It's not the fanciest of places it could afford but I like that it's still down to earth.”

Kenma huffs a laugh. "Shut up.”

“You on the other hand,” Shouyou continues, “You look like yours hasn’t been treating you well.”

“I'm being treated just fine.” Ambiguous is good, Kenma thinks. If he doesn't have to say any words out loud, then nothing is real. He pulls his phone out, checks the time. And it's not a lie. Kenma doesn't like Kuro like that or anyone for that matter. And he doesn't know what or who Kuro likes. They don't talk about things like that, not even when they sometimes see each other outside of work — very rarely, mind you. And Kenma surely never considers inviting Kuro over for a round of Street Fighter or Mario Kart when they take the train home together or when cooking for one feels like too much work. That'd be so stupid.

“But it could be better?”

“There's always room for improvement, Shouyou. You know that better than anyone.”

“But do you want improvement?” Shouyou tilts his head, watches Kenma with the same look he sometimes gets during volleyball. A little too intense for comfort and a little too all-seeing. It's fun when he looks at others like that, it's not fun being on the receiving end of it.

Kenma mumbles, “I suppose a little would be nice.”

“Well.” Shouyou points at him. “Then get to work and ask him to hang out at least. You're friends, friends do that.”

Kenma stares at him for a second. Shouyou just makes things feel and sound so easy, without being condescending about it. And when he talks about them they do seem like that to Kenma, too. What's wrong with asking Kuro to hang out? Nothing. He said it himself earlier, they’re friends. Friends hang out with each other, do things together. Playing volleyball pops into his head unprompted and Kenma blanches because no. Kuro's not a middle schooler happy with sub-optimal throws, bad passes, and non-existent stamina. He’s been playing for years and Kenma doesn't think he could suffer through the embarrassment of showing off how unathletic he is in comparison. If Shouyou asked, it would be fine. But Shouyou knows what to expect. Kuro doesn't. So no volleyball. But maybe…

He smiles at Shouyou, hoping it shows his appreciation for giving his brain the small reboot it needed. God, he missed talking to him face to face, same time zone and everything. “When's your flight back?”

Shouyou laughs and plucks his own phone out and they spend the next ten minutes trying to figure out if there's another chance for seeing each other before Shouyou goes back to his own world, and Kenma stays stuck in his self-made one where coworkers are coworkers and maybe sometimes friends.

Friends that play volleyball.

————

“If you buy bell peppers, what color of bell peppers do you usually reach for?”

Kenma blinks down at Kuro, who's currently bent over, slipping off his shoes in the genkan of Kenma's house. All his eyes can focus on is how the strands of Kuro's hair bob with the movement of his body. “What?”

“If you buy-”

“No, I heard you,” Kenma interrupts him as Kuro straightens up. They're nearly at eye level like this and Kenma looks away on instinct when Kuro's eyes find him. It doesn't feel right. “I'm just questioning why you're asking me dumb things.”

“It's not dumb, just answer the question.” The grin in Kuro's voice is big, as he steps up and becomes normal-sized again, not even bothering to apologize for the intrusion because, in the past four weeks, he's been here more afternoons than Kenma can count.

Shortly after Shoyou's visit, Kenma had taken some time off of work because there were a few new releases scheduled that he desperately wanted to get content on before they were spoiled by everyone. But he hadn't anticipated how boring the breaks in between recording and streaming would get without regular updates on the insanity that is library life and hanging out with their lunch group for a bit.

So he'd unceremoniously invited them all over.

Only Kuro ended up showing.

Kenma's certain that Akaashi's at fault for that one.

But it had been fine, fun even and they spent the evening with too much food and many a win on Kenma's side while playing games. Which one didn't matter. He killed Kuro’s spirit slowly but surely right along with his character on screen.

After that evening Kuro had just started to invite himself over. “Revenge,” he had cited the first few times. But what is there to revenge if you don't improve? And more importantly, what is there to revenge if they don't even game most times because Kenma technically still has work to deal with most days and Kuro’s usually just around, keeping himself occupied with menial things like petting Miso until she can’t stand the attention anymore.

It makes no sense.

Kenma decides not to question it, to keep his own sanity alive.

“I don't think I've ever picked one color of bell pepper over the other,” Kenma says, carefully considering why this could even be important. He glances back up at Kuro, who's nodding like he feels vindicated by Kenma's response.

“That's very yellow bell pepper of you,” Kuro says, steps around him and into the kitchen, and leaves Kenma behind with a whole lot of questions. “Do you want something to drink?”

“There’s iced tea in the fridge,” Kenma replies, staring at the empty spot left by Kuro, and then moves to the doorway of the kitchen. He watches Kuro move around the room like it's his own, opening one cupboard for glasses, another for a bowl, possibly for snacks. “What do you mean?”

“Hm?” Kuro sounds like his thoughts are already miles away again.

“Kuro.” Kenma stuffs his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “Yellow bell pepper. What do you mean by that?”

“Oh!” He pours them each a glass then turns to Kenma. He's grinning. Kenma has the sneaking suspicion that he was fishing for that exact question. “I'm so glad you asked.”

He absolutely was fishing.

And then Kuro launches into a whole speech about how the four different colors of bell peppers represent four different kinds of people — “Kinda like blood type personality but better,” he had thrown in and it made it make a bit more sense, which is stupid — but in addition to the main color, everyone has two differently developed wings — often one dominant, the other not — and one “anti bell pepper”.

“Did you hit your head?” Kenma asks when there's a break in Kuro's words as he searches a drawer for pen and paper to give Kenma a more visual representation. He doesn't need it and he didn't ask for it. “I said left of the cutlery.”

Kuro makes a triumphant noise when he finds both in the exact drawer Kenma told him they’d be in and returns to his spot next to Kenma at the counter. “Fukunaga came up with this. It makes sense, trust me.”

“I'm not trusting you with anything today,” Kenma mumbles but still directs his attention to the paper as Kuro draws a rhombus.

He taps his pencil against the top point, then writes yellow over it. “This is your main color. And your dominant wing,” he draws over one of the lines leading away from it a few times “is green. Red's your other wing.”

“And orange is my anti bell pepper?”

Kuro nods as he writes down the colors.

“But why?”

“Ah,” Kuro pauses. “It's hard to explain. It's just the vibe you get when looking at someone, seeing them talk, work, and stuff. You know?”

“I don't,” Kenma stresses. “That's why I'm asking.”

That he's even asking, humoring Kuro's absolute insanity right now, is just as insane on his own part. It surely tells him something about himself that he's not ready to take a look at right now. So he says, “Give me another example.”

Kuro's wearing a shit-eating grin when he looks back up. “Let me walk you through our lunch group, then.”

Kenma proceeds to learn the following:

Akaashi is mainly green, with a strong red wing and a faint yellow wing and orange as his anti bell pepper

Tora is mainly red, with a strong orange wing and a yellow wing. Green is his anti bell pepper.

Fukunaga is mainly orange, with a strong green wing and a yellow wing. Red's his anti bell pepper.

(At this point, Kenma is horrified to note that Kuro’s words are starting to make sense to him.)

Kuro is mainly red, with an even distribution between his green and orange wings. Yellow is his anti bell pepper.

Kenma can see it but he stays quiet, lets Kuro list a few more examples until he can't keep his mouth shut anymore. “But isn't Daishou more green?”

Kuro looks at Kenma. Kenma looks right back.

“I mean you two are similar but he's not as red as you, I'd say,” Kenma adds when Kuro just continues staring. It's making his stomach flip.

“Huh, I suppose you're right,” Kuro says after a moment, and then he starts laughing, crosses his arms on the counter top and burrows his head in them, as he guffaws. It sounds somewhat like a dying hyena and for some reason that thought sets Kenma off as well and he lets himself lean back against the counter, presses a hand over his eyes as he laughs right along.

“What even is this conversation?” he brings out in between cut-off breaths and new laughter escaping him. “I'm never leaving you guys alone for lunch again. Never.”

“Fukunaga was just-” Kuro breaks off, a new fit of laughter taking over. “He was just like ‘That’s very red bell pepper of you, Kuroo-san. And I couldn't-” He's shaking with it now, breath wheezing on every inhale and it only makes Kenma laugh harder. “I just went with it. He made it sound so right.”

“It's Fukunaga,” Kenma forces out. “He does comedy sets on the side. He's supposed to be funny!”

“It wasn't earlier, I swear.” Kuro forces himself back up as he inhales deeply, seemingly trying to calm himself down. There are tear tracks on his face. “It made so much sense.”

“Of course it does, you made it up!” He's nearly there too, heart still hammering in his chest but the urge to laugh has set a bit.

Kuro meets his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitches but his voice is deadly serious, “Very yellow bell pepper of you to doubt the big bell pepper theory, Kenma.”

Kenma snorts, an ugly loud thing and it's enough to set them both off again. The laughter and lack of full breaths during the past minutes make Kenma's knees feel weak after just a few more moments and he simply gives in, lets himself sink to the floor, and sits there as he laughs and laughs and laughs. Kuro follows him down a moment later.

By the time they get themselves somewhat under control again, there are tears on both their faces. But Kenma feels so wrung out and out of breath that he can't be bothered to even wipe them away or get back up yet to wash his face. So he just lets himself sag into Kuro's side, head coming to rest against his shoulder and he can feel the purposefully deep breaths Kuro takes, trying desperately to stay calm and collected now and moving both their bodies in turn. Kenma adjusts his own rhythm to it automatically.

He can't remember the last time he laughed this much.

Next to him Kuro exhales heavily, and says, “It’s been a while since I laughed this hard.”

Kenma hums and closes his eyes for just a second, ignoring the ache in his stomach that doesn’t come from laughing.

Things are good. They are good.

————

“This feels wrong,” Kenma mumbles as he slinks into the seating area after Akaashi.

“Don’t think about it too much.” Akaashi glances back at him. He’s his usual upright self, with no shame to be found anywhere. “He told Bokuto about this, why would he mind having us here.”

“Because we’re not Bokuto.” Case in point. Bokuto would have not shown up at the game of a friend without yelling down from the seating area and causing a ruckus just to wish them good luck. Kenma and Akaashi in comparison didn’t even text Kuro beforehand to let him know that they’d be there. Or Kenma didn’t. He has no idea what Akaashi does in his free time.

Granted, Kenma didn’t have plans to come. Not until Shouyou had sent Kenma a short video yesterday, excited yelling in the background and the familiar noises of shoes squeaking on gym floors and the impact sounds of balls being hit accompanying Shouyou’s message. Kenma had been watching it the second time — too distracted by the surrounding noises to catch everything in Shouyou’s quick ramble the first time around — when a text from Kuro had popped up, letting him know he’d be late in coming over.

Kenma’s mind had run away by itself then, thinking once again long and hard about the fact that he’d seen Kuro play volleyball during high school and couldn’t remember it for the life of him. He’d gone down the rabbit hole the night after Shouyou’s lunch visit, trying to find old recordings of TV coverage of any of Nekoma’s matches from that year in the wonderful world of the internet but hadn’t come up with much more than clips that didn’t show him anything he wanted to see or where of horrendous quality. He’d given up when he had found himself hovering over the contact information of both Karasuno and Nekoma, so close to just asking if they had recordings of any of the matches there.

At that point, he’d realized how weird he was being, deleted his browsing history, and turned off his computer.

Last night he’d considered asking Kuro about it for a split second but why ask when Kenma had already been set up for the perfect opportunity by Akaashi? What does it matter if Kenma watched Kuro play ten years ago if he can just watch him play now, right? Refreshing his memory would surely be better this way. There’s a lot to improve on in ten years and even if Kuro didn’t go professional there must be some skill and technique to what he does. He’s surely more interesting to watch now anyway. Even if he’s playing for fun.

“Get out of your head,” Akaashi says as they sit down. “We can say hello when this is over.”

Kenma immediately hides half his face in the collar of his jacket and makes a noise. “We’re absolutely not doing that.”

“What, you want him to hear about it from me or worse Bokuto, that you came to watch him play and didn’t feel like saying hello?”

It sounds bad when Akaashi says it like that. “He’d understand.”

“He’s not as tough as he looks, you know.”

“I’m aware.” Kenma let his eyes flit over the court down below, checking the people mingling about, warming up, and doing practice hits. Spotting Kuro isn’t a challenge. He has an even bigger presence around him on the court than he does at work, and even though green is not his color, it is an interesting sight to see him in a volleyball uniform. Dress pants do tend to hide a lot. Kenma wonders if he should enforce the comfortable clothes rule in his house on guests.

“If you stare hard enough, he’ll notice.”

“Shut up,” Kenma says but doesn’t stop watching Kuro’s every move. He narrows his eyes. “Is he captain?”

Akaashi hums in agreement. “You would have known if you’d listen to us from time to time.”

“I do listen.” He just enforces selective listening skills because otherwise he'd get too wrapped up in things he doesn't care about. Down on the court, Kuro shouts something to one of his teammates. Kenma huffs a quiet laugh. “He’s such a red bell pepper.”

That joke never died even if it probably should have the day it started and from time to time Kuro and Kenma would turn to each other when talking about someone and say what color they see fit for the main bell pepper for that person. 95 percent of the time they agree, the other five they find common ground after a short discussion. It’s dumb and with the way Akaashi is side-eyeing him right now, it’s also the right amount of annoying to be perfect. It's their thing. Not even Fukunaga cares for the joke anymore.

A whistle gets blown, and even in the hustle and bustle of everything Kenma can hear Kuro shout, “Gather up!” clear as day.

Kenma leans forward and watches.

—

Kuro's team wins their first game and loses the second, though they fight until the last point of the last set. Kenma didn't pay enough attention at the beginning to figure out how the matchups during this event work but it's clear that Kuro's team is done for the day, dragging their way off the court with disappointment in the air.

They look happy though, like they had the time of their lives and are proud of what they did here and Kenma watches in fascination as Kuro throws an arm around the shoulders of their libero. He lays into him in a seemingly good-natured manner, picking up pieces of dejection — at doing a not good enough job, at missing that last dig — that could crumble if left unattended. He does it with an ease that shows he's been doing this for years and it doesn't take a minute until the libero is smiling again. Kuro's returning smile is blinding.

Kenma gets up, says, “I’m getting something to drink. Do you want anything?”

Akaashi raises an eyebrow, shakes his head and Kenma leaves him sitting there as he ducks his way out of the seating area. He keeps his hands in his pockets, knowing that they'd be shaking if he pulled them out. The nearest vending machine is too close, so Kenma keeps going back down to the gym level where both the public and athletes roam in the hallways because this is a low-level thing, no separation is necessary. These aren't top athletes, these are normal people here for fun, getting nothing else from it. It's not what Kenma's used to anymore, Bokuto's and Shouyou's games tend to be much more serious even if they make it seem like fun.

Kenma looks around, finds the vending machine he was looking for, and gets himself an iced tea even if the temperatures outside are starting to drop again, leaving the hot summer months behind.

Then he leans against the wall next to the vending machine and waits, eyes fixed on the open double doors leading onto the court, watches as one, then another player dressed in green leaves through it. Neither of them is Kuro. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he pulls it out, checks Akaashi's text message. It simply reads, “Incoming.”

Kenma pockets his phone again and looks back up.

A few seconds later Kuro walks through the door, still at the side of the libero and now joined by one of their wing spikers. They are sweaty and still a little out of breath. They look high on happiness. There's a prickle of anxiety in the back of Kenma's mind as he pushes off of the wall. The old familiar feeling of intruding and pulling unwanted attention. But he untucks his head from the collar of his jacket and makes sure his hands aren't clutching his drink too hard, as he walks right up to them.

The libero notices first that he's on their way to them and he says something Kenma can't make out. But it makes Kuro's eyes flit away from where he was listening to the wing spiker and they find Kenma immediately. The way his face brightens is different from the way it had when they'd won their first game, different from the way it looked whenever he scored a point or successfully blocked an attack, different from the way it had looked after cheering up their libero minutes ago. It's different and Kenma feels it down to his bone as he stares back.

“Kenma!” Kuro's voice is full of the same brightness as he detaches himself from his teammates and leaves them standing there like they aren't important right now, coming towards Kenma. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching you play.”

Kuro laughs. “You could have told me you were coming.”

Kenma shakes his head, tracks a bead of sweat on Kuro’s neck. “I wanted to see you play, not perform.”

“Oh? Is that you implying that you'd think I'd try to impress you?”

“You would have. A little at least.” Kenma's eyes flicker to where the libero and wing spiker are waiting for Kuro to finish up with him. Or maybe they're gauging if they can leave them alone.

Kuro laughs again but it sounds embarrassed, eyes flitting away, hand scratching his neck. “I suppose you're not wrong. You're used to professional games. This must have been boring.”

“It wasn't.” Kenma shuffles a little closer, their feet nearly touching now. He makes sure to catch Kuro's eyes for his next words. “You know, we only ever do what I like when we hang out.”

“Does it matter?” Kuro's brow furrows. “Because I don't mind. I know you're particular about how you spend your free time.”

“Well, I think we should do something you enjoy next time.”

“Okay but I do enjoy playing video games with you,” Kuro says, still not caught up to Kenma's line of thought. It's fair, Kenma's not being very clear and he should change that. “Maybe not losing. But playing is fun.”

“I think you like playing volleyball more.” Kenma watches with rapt attention as the confusion gives room for surprise and then that same brightness from before on Kuro's face. It's as good a moment as any to go in for the kill . “I’d like you to teach me a bit sometime.”

This one, Kenma thinks, this smile he likes the best of all of them. The one Kuro seems to keep so close to his chest that he rarely seems aware of wearing it. The one Kenma has started to see more and more whenever they hang out. The fondness in it is turned up times ten today.

“I can do that,” Kuro says and before Kenma can process it, he's been pulled into a one-armed hug, squeezed against Kuro's warm body for just a second before Kuro steps back again. He's laughing. And Kenma feels his cheeks burn with heat and the stretch of a too-wide smile.

“Akaashi's waiting for me,” Kenma says after a second and Kuro nods though he doesn't look ready to go anywhere or to give up on Kenma's attention.

“I'll see you Monday morning?”

Kenma nods. “Can't wait.”

He takes note of the split second of something flashing over Kuro's features, something a bit darker than his smile should allow. But it's gone as quickly as it came and then Kenma turns away as Kuro is called back to his teammates.

Monday can't come fast enough.

————

Kuro makes good on his word. Multiple times.

Kenma regrets offering him the opportunity most of the time because fucking hell, he thought he hated getting sweaty and doing sports in high school but this is ten times worse. A hundred times even.

Especially afterwards.

When they play volleyball — it's mostly just some passing practice and Kuro trying to install some sort of coordination skill into Kenma's body that goes beyond his fingers — things are fine if exhausting. Seeing Kuro's laser focus and that specific smile whenever Kenma manages to do anything really, is payment enough. Really. And where Kenma didn't expect this to go past a one-time thing when Kuro realized that Kenma meant what he previously said, that he knows all the theory but has minus ten skill points here, Kuro keeps asking to play again. And Kenma keeps saying yes.

It's stupid, Kenma's being stupid — he knows Akaashi would use a different word but he doesn't want to. He likes what they are right now.

The days after they play together are the worst because all the dopamine and serotonin and whatnot exercising is supposed to boost — and that certainly do get boosted when Kuro keeps willingly offering his time and patience despite Kenma failing spectacularly again and again — is gone and leaves Kenma feeling like overcooked noodles and with his entire body aching unpleasantly. His fingers are the worst. They get stiff and shaky from overuse and it shouldn't be possible after the thousands of hours of gameplay they have behind them but they do.

At least he gets his second wish of having Kuro dress down more. He brings a change of clothes now when he visits —a hoodie, shorts, sweatpants, training jacket, whatever fits the weather best — and he rarely changes back into his work clothes before leaving. Which means there's just a whole lot more to see, muscles shifting under skin, bruises from training with his volleyball club healing over time. Kenma thrives on it and realizes pretty quickly that he won't hold out much longer. He's started getting jealous of his cat for being allowed to curl up against Kuro's leg for fucks sake.

He's going insane and the pain in his body isn't helping. It makes him sluggish and prone to reacting in ways he doesn't want to.

Today is one of those days.

Kuro made him go for a run yesterday. A run. There's nothing worse than running. That's not even volleyball anymore.

Kenma feels dead today and he lets Kuro feel his wrath by glaring at him throughout their whole lunch break and not speaking a word to him. It doesn't help that Kuro chose today of all days to wear his Bouncing Ball hoodie again — though it looks off and he keeps fidgeting with it. Kenma told him not to wear it time and time again, and yet he does, even showing up in it at Kenma's own house. Hell, they matched last week before they got too warm and both stripped out of their hoodies. It's ridiculous. Kenma tries to tell himself that he likes Kuro wearing less clothing more than he likes seeing Kuro wear something that came from Kenma's mind. He fails miserably and it only makes him look stupid.

Kenma is on his way back to his office from the bathroom, dragging his feet because it's the afternoon and no one is really around to see it and judge him for it, when someone says, “Kenma.”

Someone is Kuro. It's always Kuro.

Kenma turns even if he knows he'll be greeted by the sight of Kuro in the Bouncing Ball hoodie. He doesn't want to talk to Kuro but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to look at him. Kenma glowers at him. Or he thinks that's what he does anyway but with the way Kuro’s eyes flicker over him and his head tilts, Kenma isn't so sure.

“Come with me,” Kuro says and starts walking and Kenma hurries to catch up. They pass through a door and then another and then they are somewhere Kenma's never set foot into before because there was never a reason for him to: the stacks. He was aware that they were big but being in them makes them look huge, the hallways in between shelves long and seemingly endless. In his initial confusion about why they are here right now, he doesn't immediately notice Kuro taking hold of his hand to continue dragging him along while Kenma's eyes are everywhere but on him or where they are walking. When he does he's too stunned to say anything.

He really had no idea that the stacks were this big, slumbering underneath the library like a dungeon waiting to be discovered, but it makes so much sense. And they have so many nooks and crannies between shelves and walls and columns that seem like the perfect hiding spot. He has a vague idea of where this is going.

Kuro drags him along until they reach the furthest corner on this level — he sees stairs leading up to a different level at one point and that must be that weird building attached to the library and Kenma's amazed, he feels like a kid in a sweets shop and he doesn't even care for books. The shelves where they stop are filled with old newspapers and the slight smell of moistness hangs in the air. Kenma doesn't think that's good for a place like this but he loses that train of thought when Kuro moves them into the slim space between the last row of shelves and the concrete wall next to them, moves Kenma to be with his back against that wall and leaving Kuro with his own towards the shelves. They must be hidden from view completely like this. Kenma can't see anything but Kuro and the shelves looming over him.

“What-”

Kuro shushes him, and they are face to face, in a spot that was never made for two grown men to fit in. It leaves Kenma with little to no air between their bodies and he stares up at Kuro, watches as he brings one hand up to prop against the wall by Kenma's head, and the other comes to rest against his jaw. He's completely caged in by Kuro and Kenma finds he doesn't mind.

His heart is beating so fast and loud that it feels like it should be echoing even with all the books and paper around to swallow the sound.

“You keep looking at me like that,” Kuro mutters, voice low and dangerous in the small space. Kenma feels his breath puff against his face. A shiver runs down his spine.

“Like what?” he mumbles because he knows he's looking at Kuro. He's always doing it. He's just not sure about the how.

“Like you want to eat me whole.”

That tracks, Kenma thinks and since he can't find even a hint of malicious intent in Kuro’s voice, he reaches up to grasp Kuro's hoodie between his fingers, tugs on it.

“It's because you keep wearing this.” Kenma licks his lips. “And because of your stupid face.”

"Stupid, huh?” Their faces are close enough that if Kenma leaned just a bit forward their lips would-

Kuro moves but there's no kiss. Instead, he shifts his mouth right up to Kenma's ear, hand moving to brush his hair behind it and away from his neck. “I think you like this stupid face.”

His breath is hot against Kenma's ear, almost ticklish but in the best way. Kenma's eyes flutter shut on their own accord, his hands twisting up Kuro's hoodie tighter, pulling him inadvertently closer. “And I think the only reason you didn't want me around at the start is because you didn't know what to do about being attracted to me.”

“That would be dumb,” Kenma says but yeah that sounds about right and it’s par for the course that Kuro knows this about him. Probably figured it out real fast too and still acted like Kenma wasn’t being stupid in his obvious deflection of reality.

“No lying, Kenma,” Kuro mumbles, and then he noses along the soft spot where Kenma's ear and jaw meet before his mouth finds that same spot and he bites down. The whine that escapes Kenma's mouth is something that makes his own blood burn with a mixture of embarrassment and please-just-fucking-kiss-me but Kuro just hums with appreciation, lips ghosting over the length of Kenma's neck as if he isn't just singlehandedly destroying a life right now. And then he adds the barest hint of tongue and Kenma's knees buckle.

He's got a sensitive neck, alright, this isn't Kenma's fault.

Kuro grunts in surprise when he's suddenly got the majority of Kenma's weight hanging off of his hoodie and thus pulling on his neck. As a quick solution, he crowds Kenma further into the wall, pins him upright with his own body, as he brings his hands to Kenma's waist to steady him and give him a chance to catch his footing again. It means he has to draw his head back though but Kenma doesn't mind. It’s not like feeling Kuro pressed up against him is helping him catch anything anyway.

“Look at you,” Kuro says and there's awe in his voice.

“Shut up,” Kenma mumbles, cheeks hot and breathing too short for nothing having happened. Kuro's a tease, go figure, and Kenma is as weak to him as he was to him from day one. Above him, Kuro laughs, dark and throaty, and then he finally leans in and captures Kenma's lips with his own.

Despite all the teasing and build-up, the kiss feels tame. There's tongue involved and feeling the hitch in Kuro's breath when Kenma drags his teeth along his lower lip will surely stay on his mind for a while. Same with the stark contrast between the coolness of the wall against his back and the burning heat of Kuro’s body pressed against his front.

But as far as desperation goes there's really none. Maybe because they are both still very much aware that they are in their workplace even if hidden away and with no one around. He hopes there isn't. His whine wasn't quiet in the least. Not that he cares.

The laugh escapes him into the kiss without there being anything he can do about it. Kuro draws back then, eyebrows raised, cheeks visibly flushed even in the dim light.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Getting fired for indecent behavior at work.” It's not funny. It really isn't. Well for Kenma maybe because this is just a thing on the side. But with the way Kuro's body tenses, it's a big deal to him. Kenma nudges their noses together. “You started this.”

“Only because you kept staring at me today,” Kuro mumbles but stays where he is, close and touching.

“The hoodie,” Kenma explains, though it sounds weak. “It's a you thing.”

“Ha, yeah.” Kuro chuckles. “This isn't even mine.”

Kenma's questioning noise feels too loud.

“I must have accidentally swapped mine with yours last week. I was wondering if you'd notice.”

It explains why he was so twitchy and fiddly with it today. Kenma loosens his grip on the fabric, brushing it flat with his palms in an apology for the rough tugging he subjected it to. If it was Kuro’s he wouldn't have cared. His hands stay flat against Kuro's chest and the heart hammering right underneath fabric and skin for a second. It's kind of heady, even if some part of the quickness is probably due to the panic at possibly getting caught. Kenma slips his hands up over Kuro's shoulders, forces him to lean towards him a bit more. He stares directly into his eyes.

“Well, I suppose you'll have to come home with me so we can swap them back then.”

An offer.

“Yeah? I wouldn’t mind that detour.”

Kuro kisses him again then and this time Kenma doesn't let him pull back until he thinks he can survive the time it'll take before they're at his house and can continue this.

It takes them quite some time to part again.

—

The next day at lunch Akaashi stares them down like they offended him personally.

Kuro's hair is in a perpetual state of bedhead because Kenma doesn't own any hair products beyond shampoo and conditioner and Kuro sleeps weirdly and styling it with water only made it worse. He's wearing the same hoodie as yesterday, except it's not the same because this time it's actually his own, Akaashi doesn't know that though. The hickey on Kenma's neck, strategically hidden by opting for open hair instead of a bun, but not escaping Akaashi's sharp eyes anyway, tells the rest of the story.

“Are you two going to be annoying about this?” Akaashi says after a few minutes of random conversation and eating.

“Annoying about what?” Kenma asks as he transfers his broccoli to Kuro’s plate. It's too mushy for his taste.

“No idea what you mean,” Kuro says, offering Kenma some of his carrots in turn. Kenma shakes his head.

“That,” Akaashi says. “And tell me this didn't happen at work.”

Kenma is schooled in remaining blank-faced at the worst of times and it's easy to keep it up this time as well, “I have self-respect, thank you.”

Next to him, Kuro looks decidedly more affected by the possibility of their little tryst in the stacks seeing the light of day. Same problem as yesterday, Kenma couldn't care less, Kuro does care a lot and still was the one who started it. They may have argued about that last night in between making out and deciding what to eat for dinner.

Though argue is a strong word when Kuro’s eyes had slightly glazed over at Kenma throwing out the words “I wouldn't drop you just because you lost a job. I could support two people easily,” like it was nothing and Kuro’s reply had been a beat too late, “You’re not becoming my sugar daddy, forget it.”

But Kuro had thought about it, for just a second and very obviously. Maybe just because of the imbalance in power, though, Kenma’s not sure. But it had given him something to watch out for in the future to figure out if his initial guess was right. And really, a little bossiness isn't that far out of his repertoire. He's got a red bell pepper wing anyway and he's a CEO. If Kuro actually wants it, he can have it. He started playing volleyball for Kuro, there’s not much that could be worse.

“I swear,” Akaashi starts, fixing Kenma with a pointed look, while ignoring the panic seeping out of Kuro, “You make other people do your bidding just because it's fun.”

“Hm, I'm a horrible person, I know.” He says it so flat and monotone that even Akaashi's mouth twitches, fighting hard to stay in a disapproving frown. Kenma doesn't get why Akaashi thinks he planned for this. He didn't plan anything. He’s pretty sure Kuro had more of a plan here than him. “I can't help Kuro being bothered by me looking at him. How should I have known he'd crack at work?”

Underneath the table, Kuro knocks his foot into Kenma's. “Don't make it sound like yesterday happened just because you looked at me. I have self-respect, too, you know.”

“Yeah, but very little,” Akaashi says. “Kozume could step on you and you'd say thank you.”

Kenma snorts, Kuro says, “Fuck you, Akaashi.”

After a second of silence, Kenma says, “Maybe I should just quit to put you out of harm's way then.”

He doesn't just say it because he knows Kuro likes this job, the library, the friends he's found, and the relationships he's built here. Enjoys that he's got volleyball idiots to surround himself with at all times of the day and that they've slowly been caving to his charms and his repeated requests that they should all play together sometime. For fun, no stakes. He's only been here a little longer than a year but he fits in just right, and that's good. The Kuro he knows doesn't fit with the one he was told about, the one who left his old job because he felt exploited and like everything he did was wrong. Kuro belongs here and Kenma's not going to be the reason he loses that feeling.

Though he's sure they could practice restraint, they're not constantly horny teenagers. But Kenma likes games and he likes a challenge, so sooner or later it would happen again just because he’d push the boundaries of what Kuro would let him get away with. And maybe they'd get off unscathed, maybe they wouldn't.

He's not willing to risk it.

And he's been thinking about quitting more often lately anyway, feeling a bit of a strain when it comes to managing his time working and his rising desire to spend time with his friends, with Kuro, with playing volleyball of all things. He's technically never off the clock and it's becoming a bit overwhelming. Maybe he's getting old. For fuck sake, he's not even thirty.

“You really should,” Akaashi says and sounds dead serious. Though Kenma knows his nagging comes from a place of caring it still annoys him to no end. So he ignores him and lets his eyes flicker to Kuro. He's already looking at him, watching closely.

“Maybe you should give that thought another month or so,” Kuro says after a moment, careful hesitation in his voice but the same look in his eyes, that had been there last night when they were sprawled across Kenma's bed, only touching where Kenma's face had been smushed into Kuro's palm, thumb running back and force across his cheek, otherwise just watching each other. “We don't want you to regret that.”

“I wouldn't,” Kenma says and means it. Because it's not just about Kuro and he'll let him know later when they're by themselves again. “But I'll wait if it makes you feel better.”

Kuro smiles. Kenma presses his foot into Kuro's underneath the table. Across from them Akaashi keeps quiet and eats, letting them be.

————

Two and half months later Kenma has his final day in the IT department of the library and joins their lunch group one final time.

Another month later, Kuro moves in with him and they establish a new volleyball dinner group.

Everything changes a little.

But nothing really does.